Aijou Rentarou has absolutely no luck in love. From the time he was eight months old to the time he graduates from middle school, he’s been rejected one hundred times by girls he’s confessed to. His Friend, only referred to as “Friend A”, can’t figure why that is, as Rentarou seems to be quite a catch.
The problem isn’t exactly him, but a divine snafu. When he makes an offering and prays at the shrine of the god of love, said god emerges from the offering box to helpfully explain that he will indeed experience the opposite in high school: rather than one hundred rejections, he’ll have one hundred soulmates.
These scenes don’t simply unfold as-is, but with a healthy amount of stylized cutaways, references to popular culture (i.e. Tokyo Ghoul) and lots of lovely, lovely fourth-wall breaking. And that’s key. The rapid-fire dialogue has a satisfying rhythm. More often than not, it’s just funny as hell, and even the rare times it isn’t, it’s fun as hell to watch.
Rentarou’s first day of high school arrives, and when he bumps into two girls, they fall for him the moment they lay eyes on him. One of them, the pink-haired Hanazono Hakari, fakes a twisted ankle so he’ll help her to the nurse’s office. The orange-haired Inda Karane is a lot more stanoffish.
But be they tsundere or yandere, both are now totally smitten with Rentarou, and cling to him like cicadas to a telephone pole. I loved that metaphor, and the visual that accompanied it. I also love how Rentarou becomes the straight man to Hakari and Karane’s lively antics.
Rentarou is obviously quite unaccustomed to girls fawning over him, but he certainly seems to like it! That said, he’s always been a kind and thoughtful sort, so when he sees the girls searching intently for a pink four-leaf clover (per school legend about how finding one leads to true love), he buys them drinks to thank them.
Karane turns out to be a super tsundere, going heavy on hmmphs! and statements that start with “It’s not like ________!” Still, she accepts the drink and is clearly overjoyed to receive it, but runs off in a snit. Hakari also shows off the extent of her obsessive scheming by insisting she can’t drink more than 175ml so she can get an indirect kiss from Rentarou, only to get overexcited and spill the can.
When Rentarou offers her a hanky to wipe the spilled drink off her skirt, Hakari instead takes his hand in hers and confesses, right then and there. She loves him and wants to be his girlfriend. Harane returns (with one of every kind of drink from the vending machine since she wanted to repay him), sees that Hakari stole a march on her, and has no choice but to admit she loves Rentarou and wants to be his girlfriend too. And so, Rentarou must make a choice…so he calls for a commercial break!
He begs them to give him the night to deliberate, and visits the shrine god again for guidance. The god admits that he kinda screwed up Rentarou’s divine paperwork while he was distracted watching Castle in the Sky one night (such a great film). Thus, while virtually everyone else in the world is only fated to have one soulmate (or none), Rentarou has one hundred.
Furthermore, he warns him that if any of his soulmates fail to enter into a loving relationship with him, misfortune will befall them and eventually lead to death. Suffice it to say, his visit to the shrine only further complicated his conundrum.
Rentarou initially decides he’ll simply turn them both down, then meet with each separately to say he only did so to let the other one down gently so he could date them. But again, he’s a good dude, doesn’t feel right decieving them, and knows all too well the sting of rejection.
So instead, he meets with them the next day, caked with dirt, to declare that he loves them both want wants them both to be his girlfriends. While he admits that kinda sounds like two-timing, he promises he’ll be good to them and make them the happiest girlfriends they can be.
As a token of his commitment, he searched the clover bed all night and found not one but two four-leafs for each of them. Hakari takes the lead and accepts being two-timed as preferable to rejection. Being Rentarou’s girlfriend is all that matters. Harane grudgingly concurs, and just like that, he’s in a polycure with two cute, quirky girlfriends. Two down, ninety-eight to go!
Hyakkano pleasantly surprised me both with its effective comedy, charming characters, and Love is War! style visual density and inventiveness. There’s just so much going on, both in what’s thrown on the screen and in everyone’s voices. Throw in the other three girls in the promo art, each with their own distinct traits and quirks, and this looks poised to become even more absurd and fun as it goes.
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